West Palm Beach pedestrian accident lawyer

Shalhoub Law Injury & Accident represents pedestrians struck by vehicles in West Palm Beach and throughout Palm Beach County. That includes whose PIP pays when you are on foot, right-of-way disputes, and cases where the driver left the scene. Attorney Paul R. Shalhoub spent years defending insurance companies before he began representing injured people, and he handles every case himself, from the first call through trial.

You were on foot, so you had no insurance of your own in the crash. That does not mean nobody owes you medical benefits. Florida’s no-fault system does reach pedestrians — the question is whose policy pays, and the answer depends on facts most people never think about.

In 2024 Palm Beach County recorded 807 pedestrian crashes and 61 pedestrian deaths. Crashes were up 13.18 percent on 2023 and deaths up 12.96 percent (FLHSMV, Florida Traffic Crash Facts Annual Report 2024). More people die walking in this county than on motorcycles and bicycles combined.

Attorney Paul R. Shalhoub spent the first part of his career at a Florida insurance-defense firm. Pedestrian claims are defended on one theme — that you stepped out — and he knows how that argument is built, which is how it gets taken apart.

An honest answer, including when it is no.

Where you probably do not. A car nudged you at walking pace in a parking lot, you were checked and discharged the same day with nothing beyond a bruise, and nobody is disputing anything. Your own PIP will handle it.

Where you almost certainly do. You were struck by a moving vehicle on a road and taken to the hospital. You do not know whose PIP applies. The 14-day window is close or gone. The driver left. The driver says you stepped out. You were not in a marked crosswalk. You are visiting Florida and own no vehicle here. A child or an older relative was hurt. Or somebody died.

Pedestrian claims carry the most severe injuries of any road user group and the most aggressive comparative fault defense. The consultation is free and it is with Paul.

This is the first question, it has a definite answer, and getting it wrong in the first two weeks costs you $10,000.

Florida’s no-fault statute covers more than drivers. Section 627.736(1) extends benefits to “other persons struck by the motor vehicle and suffering bodily injury while not an occupant of a self-propelled vehicle”. That is you, on foot. So PIP is in play. The work is finding which policy.

Palm Beach County has a very large seasonal and visiting population, and that last pair of rows is not academic here. It is the single most common reason a pedestrian in this county is told there are no benefits when in fact nobody has worked through the order properly.

Two practical consequences follow. First, the policy you need may belong to someone who was not there — a relative you live with, whose insurer has no idea a claim is coming. Second, the answer has to be found in days rather than weeks, because the benefit it unlocks is conditioned on treatment that has to happen inside two weeks. Those two facts together are why a pedestrian who waits to “see how it goes” before calling anyone is usually the person who ends up with nothing from the no-fault side of the claim.

The 14-day rule applies to you

Because you are inside the PIP system, you are inside its deadline. Section 627.736(1)(a) conditions medical benefits on receiving initial services and care within 14 days of the crash, from a qualifying provider or a hospital. Miss it and the $10,000 is gone — not reduced, gone.

Pedestrians miss this deadline more than any other group, for an understandable reason: many are taken to the hospital, discharged, and then wait to see how they feel. The hospital visit itself normally satisfies the requirement, but a person who was never transported, walked away sore, and saw nobody for three weeks has usually lost the benefit before they knew it existed.

Most people struck on foot do not know their own auto policy is the one that pays first. If you are not sure what you have, bring the policy to the call and we will read it with you.

Call (561) 208-5058 Free case review

Nearly every pedestrian claim is defended on comparative fault. Under section 768.81(6), a person found more than 50 percent at fault for their own harm recovers nothing. The defense does not have to prove the driver blameless. It only has to push you over half.

None of these is answered by argument. They are answered by the scene, the vehicle data, the lighting, the sight lines, the witnesses and the reconstruction — which is why the first week matters more than the first year.

Source: FLHSMV, Florida Traffic Crash Facts Annual Report 2024, Palm Beach County table.

Roughly one pedestrian crash in thirteen killed someone, and all three numbers rose together, which is the pattern of more exposure rather than isolated severe events.

The geography is consistent. The six-lane arterials built for traffic speed rather than for people crossing them — Okeechobee, Military Trail, Southern, Belvedere, Forest Hill, Congress, Lake Worth Road, Dixie — carry long distances between signalised crossings, which is precisely the condition that produces mid-block crossings and the multiple-threat collision that subsection (9) exists to prevent. Downtown West Palm Beach and Clematis produce a different pattern: lower speeds, turning vehicles, and crossings where a driver was looking for a gap in traffic rather than for a person. Transit stops placed between crossings generate their own.

If you were taken for trauma care, the county has exactly two state-approved trauma centers, both Level I: Delray Medical Center and St. Mary’s Medical Center. Those records are the spine of the claim and should be obtained complete, imaging included. They also carry the two things a pedestrian claim later depends on and nobody thinks about at the time: the emergency medical condition determination that unlocks the full PIP limit, and the baseline imaging a treating physician needs before anyone can give a permanency opinion.

1. Get care within 14 days, without exception. This is the one deadline that destroys benefits rather than reducing them. If you were seen in the hospital on the day, you are covered; if you were not, see someone now.
2. Work out whose PIP applies before anyone bills anything. Yours, a resident relative’s, or the striking vehicle’s. Billing the wrong one creates problems that are expensive to unwind.
3. Photograph the location, not just the injuries. The crossing, the signals, the sight lines, the lighting, the distance to the nearest signalised crossing. Those facts decide the comparative fault argument and they change when the road is resurfaced or a signal is retimed.
4. Get the crash report, but expect a wait. Florida crash reports are confidential for 60 days after filing, released in that window only to those involved, their legal representatives, insurers and certain others (s. 316.066(2)(a)).
5. Have nearby camera footage preserved immediately. Private systems overwrite in days. This is the single most time-sensitive step in a pedestrian case.
6. Do not give a recorded statement to the driver’s insurer. The questions are built around subsection (8) and subsection (10).
7. Watch the deadline. Two years for a negligence claim accruing after 24 March 2023 (s. 95.11(5)(a)). A death claim runs under the Wrongful Death Act — see wrongful death. A government vehicle, or a claim about the road itself, changes the timing entirely.

Finding the right PIP policy is the first job. Using it properly is the second, and it affects what you keep at the end.

PIP pays 80 percent of reasonable medical expenses and 60 percent of lost earnings, up to the $10,000 limit, and it pays regardless of who was at fault. Two features catch pedestrians out.

The emergency medical condition rule. Reimbursement reaches the full $10,000 where a physician, dentist, physician assistant or advanced practice registered nurse determines the injured person had an emergency medical condition. Where a provider determines they did not, reimbursement is limited to $2,500. In a pedestrian case the injuries usually make the determination straightforward, but it has to appear in the record rather than be assumed — and a person who was never transported, then saw a walk-in clinic three days later, may find nobody ever addressed it.

PIP has a right of reimbursement. Whichever carrier pays will generally look to be repaid out of your recovery. So will a health plan that paid the rest. A settlement that looks like a good number before liens can be a disappointing number after them, and the negotiation of those liens is often worth more to a client than the last few thousand dollars of the gross figure. It is also work that simply does not get done if nobody is doing it.

The practical sequence: get care inside 14 days, have the emergency medical condition addressed in the record, bill the correct PIP carrier, put the health plan on notice, and deal with reimbursement before signing anything rather than after.

The pattern tells you where the evidence is, and pedestrian cases are won on evidence that has a short life.

Almost every row depends on something that disappears: camera footage overwritten, a signal retimed, a road resurfaced, a vehicle repaired, a witness who moves on. That is the argument for acting in the first week.

Throughout, one attorney handles the file. You are not passed between a signing lawyer, a litigation department and a settlement department.

Three groups appear in these claims repeatedly, and each changes the analysis in a way worth stating plainly.

Children

A comparative fault argument against a child runs into the fact that a child cannot be held to an adult’s judgment about traffic. What a seven-year-old should have understood about closing speed on a six-lane road is a very different question from what an adult should have, and the younger the child the weaker the argument becomes. Where the crash happened near a school, a park or a bus stop, the driver’s duty is assessed against surroundings that put children in the roadway predictably.

Procedurally, a parent or guardian brings the claim, and a Florida court approves certain settlements on a minor’s behalf. The 14-day rule still applies, so care has to be arranged immediately rather than after anyone has worked out who pays.

Older pedestrians

Palm Beach County has a large older population, and two arguments recur. The first is that a pre-existing condition, not the collision, explains the current state. The answer is the medical record before and after, which is why complete prior records are obtained rather than avoided — a defense that depends on a gap in the history collapses once the history is there. The second is that the person was slow to cross. Signal crossing intervals are designed to a walking speed assumption, and whether a particular crossing gave enough time is a measurable fact, not an opinion.

People working in or beside the road

Someone struck while working — landscaping a median, collecting refuse, surveying, directing traffic, delivering — may have both a workers’ compensation claim and a claim against the driver. The two interact: the compensation carrier will assert a lien on any recovery from the driver, and the sequence in which the claims are handled affects what the injured person keeps. It is also a situation where more than one party may be responsible, including a contractor responsible for the work zone.

You speak to Paul, not an intake screener. The consultation is free, and he will tell you honestly whether you need a lawyer at all — some claims do not. If he takes the case, the preservation letters and the notices to the insurers go out that day, and the calls to you stop. You treat; he deals with the other side. Nothing is settled without your decision, and you see the net figure before you sign anything.

The whole process, step by step